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December 12, 2013

The long-term unemployed aren't going away

My Thursday post for America magazine is about the long-term unemployed, which is a growing segment of our society. Too bad it's not a growing political force. An excerpt:

Solutions to long-term unemployment do not seem to be on the agenda for 2014. [Matthew] Ygelsias admits that it’s politically unthinkable for the government to directly hire more people to fix our crumbling infrastructure, or do anything else. (Going to war is a traditional way to put people to work, but I think the Tea Party Republicans would rather cede a few blue states to China than put more soldiers on the public payroll.) One small-bore idea is to help people move to places with better employment prospects.